WHERE ARE WE ANNE?: BASINS, BRAVERY AND BLOTCHES IN THE NIGHT

BRINDISI, ITALY TO VATHI ON THE ISLAND OF ITHACA, GREECE

24th - 25th August 2013

BRINDISI MARINA ITALY

Brindisi Marina at 34 Euro a night was a welcome stop. It's a funny old spot, perfectly nice as marinas go, good staff etc. but one gets the feeling it was meant for bigger things than the few itinerant yachts that were there. Either that or the enthusiastic architect had an incurable penchant for vitreous basin ware.

Maybe the season is past the high point and now well on to shoulder but those basins in the ablutions block were standing sentinel, steeled for an invasion of simultaneous regattas. Not many toilets, but no waiting for a basin. There were rooms of basins. There was even a room with rows of basins, the purpose of which I can only guess..

We stayed two nights at Brindisi waiting not for a basin but a weather window. After the rough weather that drove us in to Brindisi, Anne was a little reticent to face 30 hours straight of that kind of weather again. She researched ferry timetables and considered her verdict on whether to sail another overnight passage on Pave or take the ferry to Greece and rejoin there. In the end she screwed her courage to the sticking place, put on the big shoulders and stayed on board. It was a good move. We left at dawn and motored out on to very calm seas. In fact we motored and motored. We sailed a bit but we mainly motored....

The whole passage was calm and uneventful but for a delightful visit by some dolphins. I was below getting my camera so I missed the one show only seaworld demonstration of a dolphin leaping out near the boat and powering backwards on his tail. Yeah, yeah, guys, I'll take your word for it.

I think Anne even came close to enjoying the passage, very little shipping with the only activity converging on Brindisi just after we left in the morning.

I've quietly been nursing the notion of somehow, somewhere in Greece, getting to cook up fresh squid that I've caught myself. It almost happened last night despite not yet having any gear to catch them. The morning light revealed squid ink splattered liberally on the deck, on the sails and it even came through a hatch into the galley sink. We searched but no squid wedged under the dinghy or elsewhere. Seems we ploughed through some and must have upset one or two. But they are here and my squid ambition may yet be realised.

We arrived at the picturesque quay in Vathi, lined with Australian gum trees, reversed in and tied up to Greece.